


Juxtaposition

by ShariDeschain



Series: Batdictionary [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brothers, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Not Canon Compliant, Swearing, Timeline What Timeline, What-If, and dont even let me start on that whole amnesia thing, be warned I like to make Jason suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9606995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: Juxtaposition(n) the state of being close together or side by side.Or the one where Jason reminds Tim that sometimes Damian takes jokes all too seriously.+ the one where Tim reminds Jason that he has only himself to blame.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- Written for the COWT challenge @ maridichallenge, prompt "uncertainty".

He had planned the details of this operation for two weeks straight, with great care and no little caution for his normal standards, and up until half an hour ago he was actually pretty damn pleased with himself for the results of his hard work. That’s why, if someone asked him right now how could he screw it all up so badly, Jason honestly wouldn’t know what to say to them (apart from _fuck off_ , that is).

So, he’s trapped in a corner, he’s bleeding and he’s angry, and he’s so ready to kill anything that even looks at him the wrong way, let alone shoot at him like the thugs in front of him have been trying to do for the last half an hour, and of course - _of course_ \- that’s the moment when things get even worse.

He doesn’t see Damian. He doesn’t hear him either. Shit, he wouldn’t even know it’s _Damian_ \- what with the kid not wearing his Robin costume but just normal baggy teenager clothes - if not for the fact that there aren’t so many kids around Gotham who would willingly jumps in the middle of fights they so obviously have no business to do with. (There are a few others besides Damian, yes, but they’re all taller than this kid is) (and on top of that, Damian is kind of, you know, Jason’s brother).

So he’s trapped in a corner, he’s bleeding and he’s angry, and he also gets to watch a fucking kid - _his fucking kid brother_ \- jumping in the middle of his fight with no weapons, no kevlar protection and probably - because he knows him well enough at this point - not even the hint of a plan on his mind.

His adrenaline levels rise, instinct kicks in, and Jason gets back on his feet without even thinking about it. He starts shooting bullets, curses and swears indiscriminately at everything that moves - and let’s be honest, that should’ve been the preferred course of action all along, screw the planning thing, it never works anyway. 

He’s going to kill Damian. Save his short ass first and then beat it black and blue. Tie him to his bed and let him watch while he burns everything the brat owns, clothes, knives, videogames, art supplies and carefully hidden toys (because Dick had spilled the bean about those, yeah). Take his pets away from him and give them to the local zoo.

His mind only stops rambling when he notices one of the snipers he was trying to distract turning his attention and his rifle away from him and towards Damian, and a thought - no, not even a thought, but an unavoidable certainty - freezes him to the bones.

Damian is going to die. Again.

And since Jason wasn’t there the first time, now he gets a front row ticket to the show. _The best tickets you could get, ladies and gentleman!_ , a voice inside of his head starts screaming, a voice that sounds sickeningly similar to the Joker’s. _And if you’re very very lucky, you’ll be even getting some of the blood on your faces! That’s how close you get to be! Isn’t this what family is for? Ah ah ah._

Jason’s panicking. He knows that. But knowing isn’t helping, and the split of time he was given to actually do something about it is already running out. 

Meanwhile Damian delivers a mid-air kick to one of the thug's face, jumping closer to the sniper’s position and stepping even more clearly in his line of fire. Jason’s out of batarangs and the angle would be wrong anyway. Same goes for shooting first, no way he’s gonna hit the guy and that would probably just prompt him to shoot right back at Damian. So Jason does the only thing he can think of and dives for his brother, but he doesn’t have enough momentum, and the bullet goes off while he’s still too far away to shield the kid.

Jason’s heart skip a beat. Damian merely flips on his side and rolls on the ground. The bullet doesn’t even brushes him. He probably saw the sniper too, Jason realizes while he shifts on his feet to charge at the shooter without losing a beat. He’s going to kill him anyway. The thug first, Damian later.

He avoids two bullets fired at him in quick succession, then lands a good round of punches on the guy’s face. He’ll probably survive, but he’s gonna need a lot of reconstructive surgery to look as a human being again. Behind him Damian keeps drawing shouts and cries of pain, so Jason knows he’s doing okay. Still, his pulse doesn’t slow down. He can still taste the aftertaste of the fear in the back of his throat. He’s not gonna sleep well tonight. Or tomorrow. Or any night soon, probably.

Yes, Damian’s most definitely dead. Again.

-

Even with the newfound energy and Damian’s help, it takes them almost an hour to clear the docks, tie up everyone who’s still moving and retrieve the crates of weapons that were Red Hood’s primary purpose for this escapade.

Once everything’s done and the police’s sirens are on their way, Damian turns towards him with a smirk. It’s the first time that night Jason gets a good look at his face and he notices that he’s wearing the Robin domino mask. He’s unscathed, not even a scratch or a rim of sweat on his forehead. He actually looks quite content, and ready to start all over again.

“Well, that was easy. Is this how you usually spend your weekends, Hood? Being a living target practice for half-witted goons?”, he taunts.

Jason barely register he’s even speaking. He loads the last crate on his van and secures it with a lock, then gets up on his feet and takes off his helmet in one swift movement. When he finally turns to look at his brother, quickly and without even the hint of a warning, he grabs him by his wrist, pulling him toward himself. He peels the domino mask from his face and throws it away before Damian has even the time to understand what’s happening to him.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”, he growls in his face, all the adrenaline of the night still pumping his blood, loading his voice with a low key promise of violence and pain, and Damian’s so startled by his reaction he actually tries to take a step back, eyes widening in alarm. “What the fuck are you even doing here without your costume? Are you fucking suicidal?”

“Release me!”, Damian shouts back once the surprise fades away. He struggles uselessly against him, and for some reason that only serves to fuel Jason’s fury. He catches the flailing fist the kid’s trying to hit him with and uses his grip on him to shake him like he’s nothing more than a ragdoll until he actually hears the rattling of his teeth.

“I said. What the fuck. Were you thinking”, he asks again, voice like a thunder, fear and anger numbing him to everything else.

“I saved your sorry ass, you simple-minded ruffian!”, Damian screams.

“You almost got yourself killed again, you fucking minikin!”, Jason screams back.

Damian does his best interpretation of a feral growl and tries to headbutt him in the stomach. Jason shifts just in time and his hipbone promises him revenge in the form of a big, fat bruise. Jason can almost feel it blooming on his skin already. He loses his balance for the split of a second and Damian, relentless as ever, takes the opportunity to bite his hand too. Jason snarls, blocks a direct kick to his knee, and having finally had enough, he straightens up in his full height.

And Damian may be a high skilled assassin baby with the equivalent of twenty years or more of hard training on his little shoulders, but he’s also a tiny eleven years old kid, and Jason is the size of a mountain compared to him. So when he grabs him by the collar of his shirt and lifts him up in the air to slam him against the nearest wall, Damian can’t do anything else but yelping in pain and looking completely stunned for a moment, just like any other regular kid would.

Then again, this is Damian, so the moment passes and he quickly resumes his fight by jerking into his grip and digging all of his ten nails into the skin of Jason’s wrist, while also loading a kick that will do no favor to his ribs - that if Damian actually gets to land it, of course. But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t because, again, Damian may be angry, but Jason is _angrier_. Furious. And for a white hot moment he wants nothing more than to stop defending himself and actually hit the kid back. He wants to beat him until he's crying and fucking apologizing for this entire mess. Which… would be unfair, considering that most of this mess is definitely Jason’s fault.

He closes his eyes. Breathes. Counts to five. Opens his eyes again.

“Damian”, he calls, more calmly.

Damian keeps squirming, still trying to kick him. Jason counts to five again.

“Damian, that was a show of monumental stupidity and you are smart enough to know it”, half a praise, half an insult. That was Dick’s advice on how to deal with the kid (except Dick may have said _scolding_ instead of _insult_. But whatever).

Anyway, it works - _of course_ it does - and the kid actually looks up at him. Jason doesn’t let go of his shirt but shifts his grip so that he’s not leaning all his weight on the kid’s chest anymore and Damian can take a deep breath too. They look at each other for a long, uncomfortable minute, then Damian finally caves in.

“You needed the help”, he reproaches Jason, who’s not hypocrite enough to deny it.

“I could’ve used _Robin’s_ help, maybe, not _Damian Wayne’s_.”

“Tt. I had my mask on, there’s no way any of them could identify-”

“Not the goddamn point, kid.”

Damian pouts and looks down at his feet dangling well above the ground. He looks… deflated. Like he’s actually offended at Jason for getting angry at him.

“Put me down”, he orders, kicking him lightly in the stomach.

Jason eyes him for a moment before complying. Damian straightens up and adjusts his clothes with as much dignity as he can muster - which is still a lot, all things considered. Jason gives him some space while he recovers the green domino mask and pockets it.

“Now, do you want to tell me what the hell are you doing around Gotham in your civvies? And no smartass answers, you stepped on the limit of my patience two years ago.”

Damian doesn't look at him. He’s still pouting and the tip of one of his sneakers is aggressively pounding the ground, and if Jason didn’t know any better, he would say that the kid’s fidgeting.

“I was taking a walk”, comes the grudgingly answer.

Jason’s mouth twitches and he has to remind himself that swatting kids is a bad thing to do, even when you are the Red Hood and the kid is Damian.

“...you were taking a walk. In the middle of the night. On Gotham’s docks.”

Damian scowls at him.

“It’s not like I can go home”, he sputters, and _oh_. Oh. 

Jason runs a hand over his face. He never thought about that. Fuck Bruce. Fuck Dick, too.

“Please tell me you haven’t been roaming around Gotham’s streets since that shit with Bruce went down.”

Damian looks at him like he’s a crazy person.

“Of course not, Todd. Do I look like a street rat to you?”

Jason wisely decides not to answer that.

“Okay, look, if you need a place to stay-”, he’s not sure about what he’s going to say next because his plan for the night didn’t include adopting homeless little brothers. Then again, there were obviously a lot of things that his initial plan for the night didn’t included at all.

“I have a place to stay”, Damian interrupts him. “It doesn’t matter. He's going to send me back anyway.”

Jason blinks, taken aback by that.

“Who's going to send you where?”

“Drake.”

“What?”

“He's going to send me back to Grandfather. He’s my legal guardian now, so it is in his power to do so, since Father can’t stop him.”

Jason blinks at him again, but Damian’s only reaction is crossing his arm over his chest and sheepishly look at his shoes, like he’s embarrassed to have confided that much to Jason. Which means that he actually believes in what he just said.

“Tell me you are kidding”, Jason pleads, but he already knows Damian’s not kidding at all. It’s all in his posture, in the way he’s angrily chewing his bottom lip and avoiding Jason’s eyes. And suddenly Jason has a sneaky suspicion that Damian had seek him out on purpose tonight, and that helping him deal with a bunch of thugs was his… _Damian-esque_ way to ask Jason to help him back with this crazy deportation theory thing with Tim.

“Oh for the love of-”, he sighs, kneeling in front of the kid. “Okay smurf, just tell me the story from the beginning, yeah?”

-

It’s 3.00 AM, Tim Drake is wearing the top half of his best suit over his pajama's trousers and he's not even ashamed of it. He doesn't mind having a conference in the middle of the night to accommodate a client calling from the other side of the world, and he's not hypocritical enough to mourn the loss of sleep that he wouldn't be having anyway, but it's been a long, long week, and he's tired. So tired that he barely reacts when his front door opens with a bang and Jason Todd bursts into his living room, tugging along with him a reluctant Damian Wayne by his hand.

“As for the results of the second semester-”, Tim's saying, and then he glances up from his laptop to stare at the two figures standing in the doorframe. Jason’s in his costume, Damian is not, but they both look tired and ruffled, like after a patrol gone wrong. He looks at Jason's face, then at Damian's, then at the way Jason's holding Damian's hand. He closes the ledger in front of him and smiles politely at the computer's screen.

“-They are not ready yet, but I'll inform you as soon as the numbers come in. Thank you”, he finishes, closing the laptop. Bit rude, but as previously stated, Tim's tired. He looks back at his brothers, who – quite surprisingly, to be honest – have yet to spoke a single word.

“So... what happened?”, he asks, bracing himself for the answer. He doesn't know what _else_ could happen, what with Dick gone and the whole Bruce's amnesia affair and the demon brat now living with him, but he learnt long ago to not underestimate the amount of shit his life can manage to throw at him at the same moment. Besides, this is Jason _and_ Damian _holding hands_. That's an alarm bell of its own.

Jason gives him a hard stare. He’s standing tall and angry, and looks like he wants to punch someone (probably Tim). Which is not his worst mood, because at least he doesn’t look like he wants to _kill_ someone (again, probably Tim). Maybe the situation’s not so bad. Maybe.

“Kiddo here crashed my operation”, Jason starts slowly, shaking Damian by his hand. 

“I did not-”, Damian tries to interject, but Jason doesn’t pay him any attention.

“Almost got both of us killed.”

Damian looks up at him angrily and Tim knows that the grip of his little hand must be bone-crushing by now, even if Jason looks totally unbothered by it.

“Your incompetency at doing your job is not my problem, Todd. Beside it was you who-”

Again, Jason completely ignores him.

“I was going to give him a piece of my mind about that, but turns out this entire mess it's actually your fault”, he concludes, still looking at Tim.

Damian doesn't add anything to that. Which is surprising. And honestly worrying.

Tim just sighs, fingers rubbing his temples. He looks again back and forth between his two brothers and for a moment he finds himself at loss of words.

“How- how it is my fault?”

Jason raises an eyebrow, and Damian suddenly finds a very interesting spot on the floor to stare at.

“Apparently you told him you were going to send him back.”

Tim tilts his head to the side.

“I told him…”, he slowly repeats. “What? Back where?”

“To Ra's”, Jason quietly growls. And if looks could kill, right now Tim would be dying in a very horrible way. But it's Jason the attempting eye-murderer. Damian's still busy studying the pattern of his floor tiles.

Tim doesn't understand. Yes, he and Damian had an argument today, one that ended with the littlest Wayne stomping out of his apartment in a cloud of holy rage, but that was hardly news to anyone. And yes, there were insults and threats thrown back and forth between the two of them, but again, no news there - if anything their squabbles were getting kinda repetitive and boring. So no, he doesn’t understand. Not right away.

“I never told him-”, he starts, then something clicks and he pauses, sighs again, and barely refrains himself from banging his head into the desk. “Oh my god- it was a joke. I told him that if he didn't behave I would send him back to where he came from- and I didn’t _mean_ Ra’s. I actually meant, you know, _Hell_. But it was a joke! Like, telling your siblings that they've been found in a trash-can and adopted out of pity joke? Or that you'll sell them to the circus joke?”

That's enough to spark Damian's anger. Tim tones out his snarky remarks at being the only _blood son_ because he’s heard them quite enough, thank you very much. But for all the insults and angry shouts, there’s still something off about Damian. Something that says he’s defensive, and insecure and… scared. The idea that Damian - Jesus, _Damian_ \- could be scared of him is… Tim doesn’t have a word for it. It’s just not something that makes sense.

He looks up at Jason again, almost gaping.

“It was a joke, Jason”, he repeats weakly.

“Good thing that you remembered that the kid here has a good sense of humor then”, Jason retorts. And well, he’s not wrong.

Tim looks back at Damian’s scowling face. He wants to remind the brat that when he needed a place to stay he had took him in without batting an eye and despite their conflicting relationship, but he doesn’t know how to say it without making it sound like Damian owns him for that, which is not the point Tim wants to make.

“I fought Ra’s when he tried to take your body”, he reminds him then, because it’s the only thing he can came up with at the moment.

“Father made you do it”, the kid promptly snarls back.

“No, he-”, Tim starts, then bits his lips. “No, I would’ve done it anyway.”

Damian doesn’t answer, but he has this look of mighty disbelief plastered all over his face, and Tim instantly knows that there’s no convincing this kid. And maybe he’s right anyway, because back then Tim had been in a very dark place and yeah, Damian was not exactly on the list of his good actions. But that was then, and this is now, and things have changed. They may not be friends yet, but he can’t think of Damian as anything else but his younger brother (and an annoyance, of course, but that kind of goes with the word).

Yet it's pretty clear that with Bruce and Dick gone, Damian thinks he doesn't have a family anymore. And well, it's not like he doesn't have his own right reasons to think so. But.

“This is so stupid”, Tim mutters, closing his eyes and hiding his face behind his hands. He wants a coffee. He wants to sleep. He wants to never tell a joke again in his life.

When he reopens his eyes Jason and Damian are still standing in front of him, looking as much tired and angry as he feels. Tim sucks in a breath, realizing that he’s going to have to apologize, and even if he kind of see the point of it, he still doesn’t like it.

Jason's not going to help him either, that's pretty much clear. Even if he's not butting in, he's still standing beside Damian, and he has still not let go of the kid, even if the back of his hand is a battlefield of scratches and- yes, those are definitely bite marks. Jason knows how to make statements without a single word being spoken, and in any other situations Tim would probably laugh at the ridiculousness of all of this.

He stands up and walks around the desk to kneel in front of Damian, close enough to touch him but also leaving enough room between the two of them to shield himself from an eventual attack. Caution is one of the first things you learn when you’re around Damian Wayne.

“Look, I know things are complicated right now. And I know that _complicated_ is the understatement of the century”, he quickly adds when both Damian and Jason click their tongues at him - and oh my god, is that a family thing now? “But they had been complicated before, and honestly, I don’t think they’re ever going to be _not_ complicated, because we are who we are and all of that, but. But you’ve been around enough to know how this works now. We take the hit, we regroup and we go on. And we always, _always_ , protect our own.”

_Or at least what’s left of them_ , he adds mentally. And it’s not the best speech of his relatively brief and not really brilliant older brother’s career, but Damian’s frown lightens a bit, and the kid doesn’t look so angry and hurt anymore.

“No one will send you anywhere, Damian. I’m sorry if I said something that made you think so, it wasn’t in my intentions”, Tim adds anyway, just to be crystal clear about the entire affair, since Damian’s not one for subtleties. “And if Ra’s ever tries to take you back, we’ll kick his ass again, Bruce or not Bruce. Okay?”

Damian just clicks his tongue again.

“Tt. Like I would require your assistance”, he retorts. Then he seems to realize that holding his older brother’s hand while saying so kind of ruins the aesthetic of it, so he gives Jason an annoyed tug, and this time his brother allows him to free his hand. He doesn’t spare him a teasing smile and a quick hair ruffle, though.

“Well, you have it anyway, smurf”, he adds, butting into their discussion for the first time. “Besides, Timbo wasn’t talking about just the two of us, you know?”

“Yeah”, Tim cuts in. “Steph and Cass would love to take a swing at Ra’s, and Barbara always had some sort of personal grudge against him. Oh, and Alfred will probably put on the cape and the cowl himself- and let me tell you, he's going to be ten times more terrifying than Bruce or Dick ever were.”

Jason laughs, loud and clear. Damian scrunches up his nose in that funny way he does when he's trying not to smile.

“Pennyworth would make a worthy protector and a mighty opponent”, he concedes, and now it’s Tim’s turn to hide a smile.

“Glad we can agree on something.”

“Tt.”

Jason yawns and stretches his back, producing an annoying sound of crackling bones first and then a wince.

“Alright nerds. Now that the crisis has been resolved, and before I ground your ass and kick yours”, he says, pointing at Damian and then at Tim respectively. “I need food, alcohol, disinfectant and a forceps. In this exact order. I forgot I was bleeding out and after all this sweet talking about family and whatnot I think I’d definitely feel guilty if I died again.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one where Tim reminds Jason that he has only himself to blame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the COWT @ maredichallenge

It becomes a habit much more quickly than he likes to admit, and for a lot of different reasons that are not just _because I’m bored and I have nothing better to do tonight_ , which is usually what he tells Tim when he calls him to ask if they’re okay with him coming over.

Tim always says _yes, of course Jay, we’ll wait for you_ , and never even comments on the fact that Jason has his own keys and he doesn't really have to ask him anything at all. He lets him live in his fake denial and Jason is kinda happy that way, or at least that’s what he says to himself everytime he opens the door of Tim’s apartment with his arms full of grocery bags.

Tonight, as many other nights, Tim and Damian are sitting at the opposite sides of the kitchen table, laptops open in front of them and piles of books framing their space like walls of two rival forts on a battlefield, a matching frown on both of their faces. Tim’s wearing his reading glasses and gnawing the top of his pencil with a focussed expression, and Jason knows he’s been working non-stop for hours now. Damian, on the other hand, is perched on the edge of his chair, fingers playing with the cord of his headphones, watching the screen of his laptop with glassy eyes, and Jason knows he’s bored out of his mind and just pretending to be working because of Tim.

He scoffs both at them and at himself, because really, if he’s noticing these kind of things already it means that he’s spending way too much of his time with these two shitheads. And that’s not okay. For a lot of reasons. He has a very long list of them somewhere. 

“Alright, enough with this shit”, he says while walking into the kitchen, loud enough to snap Tim out of his working trance and for Damian to hear him despite the outrageous volume of his iPod. He has no doubt they’ve noticed him the moment he’s set foot in the apartment, they both probably just didn’t believe necessary to acknowledge his presence in any way. The brats.

He sets the bags on the counter with a loud thudand turns around to see both of his brothers glaring at him with an identical raised eyebrow. If they were closer to each other the urge to bang their heads together would probably be too strong for Jason to resist.

“Put all of those books away, then come help me with the groceries”, he orders with his best impersonation of Alfred’s voice.

“And exactly what was the cause of the head trauma you obviously had to suffer to think that we’re at your service, Todd?”, Damian asks, shooting him one of his best looks of haughty disdain.

Tim laughs but closes his laptop and stands up anyway.

“Come on, Damian, don’t be ungrateful”, he chides lightly. “After all Jason’s the one with the skill to turn raw food into a real dinner.”

“I never said I was gonna cook”, Jason retorts. And it’s true, but what’s also true is that he doesn’t have to _say it_ because everyone, himself included, just take it for granted since Tim can’t cook anything that doesn’t come from the frozen food section and no one with a shred of survival instinct would ever allow Damian to play with knives and open fire.

“And if you don’t get a move you’re going to wash the dishes tonight”, he warns Damian, who just clicks his tongue at him.

“I see the trauma was even more serious than expected since you’re also experiencing memory losses”, the kid answers without losing a beat. “We have a dishwasher, unlike some uncivilized overgrown bullies”, Damian reminds him smugly and Jason, well aware of the responsibilities coming from being the adult of the situation, throws an apple at him.

Damian catches it easily and takes a bite out of sheer spite, and Jason wants to bang his head against the wall when he realizes that the first thing that almost gets out of his mouth is _you’ll ruin your appetite, you little shit._ When did he ever become a very less polished and well-mannered version of Alfred Pennyworth he will never know. What he knows is who he has to blame for it, though.

“You little shit”, he just grumbles back, narrowing his eyes at him, but it’s a weak retort and Damian triumphantly grins at him.

Tim just shakes his head, hiding his own smile and taking up some of Damian’s books while walking around the table.

“Alright guys, let’s call a truce”, he offers. “I’ll put the books away and set the table, and Damian can help with the bags and the cooking.”

Jason scoffs and starts pulling out the groceries. Damian, having won his own personal moral battle against Jason, graciously helps him putting them away, still munching at his apple with great satisfaction. He doesn’t even retaliate when Jason accidentally swats him on the back of his head with a stalk of celery, and that means he’s in a good mood. Tim too looks pretty much content when he comes back and starts moving around them to take out the tableware.

Jason, on his part, finds himself settling in the domestic bliss quite easily, and almost without noticing it. He cooks, and he grabs the things Tim needs from the top shelves for him with a teasing smile, and he teaches Damian how to slice the vegetables without making them looking like the victims of a homicide.

With dinner, movies and no patrol for once, in the end it turns out to be a real nice, homely family night, and that’s probably why Jason keeps forgetting all the reasons why he shouldn’t get too attached to any of this.

*

Of course quiet family nights are a rarity more than a common occurrence.

Most of the times Jason would open the door and find Tim and Damian shouting or launching things at each other (no physical fights though, that’s one thing he has to give to them), or barricaded in their bedrooms blasting music at each other at full volume - and thank god Damian scared the neighbours enough to convince them to never ever think of meddling in their fights, or cops and social services would be constant guests of this house.

Usually he would side with Tim and force the little demon to back off (because at the cost of sounding biased, Damian is the responsible party ninety percent of the time), or just shout at them both until they both shut up, and sometimes - because there were those times too, no use in lying about it - he would just turn back and walk the hell out of there.

Then one night he comes- okay, no, he’s not going to think about this as him _coming home_ because this is _not_ his home, not even close to it, in fact, despite having now spent two weeks in a row coming here every night to have dinner and leave for patrol together and then come back again to crash on the couch and god, he needs to put a stop to this _yesterday_.

So, one night he comes to Tim’s apartment and the place is a mess. A truly, unholy, striking mess that makes his heart jump a beat because when it was the last time they heard about Ra’s? Or Talia, for that matter? And Ra’s always had a weird obsession with Tim, so what if they came here together to take away both of them and then split them, Tim with Ra’s and Damian with his mother? What the hell is Jason supposed to do if that’s the case?

“Tim! Damian!”, he calls, panic making his voice sounding thick with anger more than with worry, and he’s almost ready to bolt out of the door and towards the Manor - because fuck the whole amnesia thing, if the kids are in trouble he’ll force Bruce to remember them with his fists if he has to, no fucking way he’s letting him come too late for them too - but then a soft whimper attracts his attention and he stops in his tracks. 

The sound came from Tim’s bedroom so Jason runs there, ready to find his brother covered in blood and the confirmation that Damian’s gone - but at least Tim’s here and together they can and they will get him back, Bruce or not Bruce. Those were Tim’s words, not so many weeks ago. 

He finds Tim on his bed, laying on his stomach, a pillow pressed over his head. No blood, no wounds, and the mess around him is the usual Tim-mess, not the tornado-like mess in the half destroyed living room.

“Tim?”, Jason calls to him, the pit of his stomach still tight as a knot but now for a different reason. 

“Mph”, Tim answers into the mattress.

Jason growls.

“Tim, what the fuck happened out there?”

There must be some kind of dangerous undertone in his voice because Tim doesn’t huff at him again. Instead he raises the pillow from his head and turns around to look at him. He takes in Jason’s posture, his white face and clenched fists, then he seems to consider the state of the rest of his house and how all of this would look like from a point of view of someone who knows what these kind of situations usually means and he just goes _...oh_.

“Oh. No, no, it’s not- It’s okay, Jay. That was all Damian. Well, almost all Damian. Sorry”, Tim babbles, now propped up on his elbows, ruffled hair and eyes big with worry and guilt.

And Jason wants to be angry, he really wants it. He also wants to storm out of this goddamn apartment and never come back again because seriously, he did not die and come back to life for this kind of shit. Instead he plops down on Tim’s bed and hides his face in his hands, rubbing his forehead in the vain attempt to stop the incipient headache he knows is coming.

“I thought it was Ra’s”, he hums against his palms, because there’s no point in trying to look less ridiculous than he feels.

“Sorry”, Tim offers again, moving closer to him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Mh”, Jason answers.

They sit in silence for a few minutes before he finds the strength to ask.

“You want to tell me why Damian decided to redecorate the house to make it look like a dump?”

Tim sighs and lets himself fall back on the bed.

“We were fighting about patrol again”, he answers, closing his eyes. “You know how he is.”

Jason does know. It’s been a periodical fight in the last month, with the little demon being more and more insistent on wanting to try the solo thing while Tim’s busy with the Titans and Jason with the Outlaws, instead of just getting dragged along by one of them. And he had some valid points too, Jason can’t deny it, but let an eleven years old - even _this_ eleven years old - patrolling Gotham completely alone is something neither him or Tim are ready to do.

“He kept saying that Dick and even Bruce would’ve let him out on his own”, Tim goes on, voice just a little above a whisper. “And… I don’t know, I just lost it. Because I know, and you know, and _even Damian_ _knows_ that they would’ve never- that Bruce would never... And I must’ve said the wrong thing again and he snapped. So I snapped too. I think I throw him across the room, and things obviously escalated from there.”

“Tim…”, Jason starts.

“I know. But I’m trying. I swear, I’m trying. But he’s so frustrating sometimes and-”, he pauses, pressing a hand over his eyes. “I get that he misses Bruce and Dick, I get it. I know it’s hard and I know he’s, well, _Damian_. But I swear to god, sometimes I just want to give him a goddamn spanking.”

Jason finds himself chuckling at that.

“Well, it wouldn’t be undeserved”, he agrees. “But then he’ll probably slit your throat in retaliation.”

“Definitely, not probably”, Tim corrects him with a snort.

Silence sets back between them and Jason stares at the floor, knowing what Tim’s going to ask him next. To his credit, Tim bites his lips and looks very apologetic when he finally does ask.

“Can you talk to him, Jason? Sometimes he listens to you, you know.”

Jason only snorts at that.

“Sometimes he listened to Dick. Maybe. If he was in a good mood. And if the stars were in the right position”, he corrects him bitterly. “But yeah, why not, I guess I’d earn my share of insults anyway so we might as well get on with it.”

*

He finds Damian on his bed, laying on his back, a pillow pressed over his face.

He wants to laugh.

They’re so similar, yet they would never admit it. They get offended with him every time he tries to point it out, and it’s so funny and so sad at the same time that they can’t see it when it’s so obvious to him (and would be so obvious to Bruce and to Dick too, if only they were here now, but then again, if they were here now none of them would be in this mess in the first place.)

He approaches the bed slowly and with heavy steps, making sure not to take the kid by surprise, in the very remote case he’s actually sleeping. Damian doesn’t react to his presence in any way, doesn’t even protest when Jason sits on the edge of his bed and prods him in his leg with a finger.

“Nice work out there, kid. You must really be a little prince to fuck up so majestically”, he says, going for the direct confrontation. Damian doesn’t believe in edulcorated discussions or in softening the blow, he likes a hit to be blunt and honest and Jason both respects and agrees with that. “Want me to call you Your Highness from now on?”

“Go away”, Damian orders him, but his usually imperious tone now sounds a little wet around the corners.

“Are you crying?”

The kid shifts a little, trying to distract him to hide a sniffle, and that’s all the answer Jason needs. 

“Good. That’s probably the only proper reaction you had tonight”, Jason comments harshly because, like Tim, he gets it too - how could he not. A dead brother, an absent father, a house they don’t dare to call home, that’s something all of them can understand.

And yes, Damian is still a child, a child who’s been abused beyond comprehension since the day he was born, but that doesn’t mean that he can get away with everything. Pain and loneliness are not a justification for violence or for hurting other people, and yes, he knows that if he'd ever dare to say that out loud Damian would quite literally skin him alive because that qualifies as the right title for his future autobiography, but that’s also why he’s the one who can truly say this kind of shit and knowing what he’s talking about. He walked that road first, after all, and what’s the point of his entire second life if he can’t even save his own brothers from making the same mistakes?

“I am not crying”, Damian only answers from under the pillow, making it even more clearly that he is, in fact, crying.

Jason sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Messy houses, moody teenagers, crying children: here they are the top three bullet points of that infamous list of reasons he keeps forgetting.

He looks at Damian’s hands, clenched into fists around the edges of his pillows, whitened knuckles and arms rigid with tension, then turns his head towards the door frame, where Tim’s lean figure has just appeared. Jason sighs again.

“It’s not a matter of trust, you know”, he says slowly, looking at his own hands. “It’s not even a matter of skills. This is about doing what’s right for you- what Bruce and Dick would want for you, if you prefer.”

“They don’t-”

“I know they don’t. But Bruce’s going to remember eventually, no way this is going to be permanent. You know that. And you also know that the moment he’ll get you back he’ll never let you patrol alone until you’re old enough to drive legally at least.”

“I did it anyway”, Damian mutters, so softly Jason almost doesn’t catch it. “The driving, but also patrol alone. Sometimes. When he was off-planet with the League.”

He laughs bitterly at that.

“Of course you did it. Hell, we all did it, at some point. And who knows, maybe a few times he really didn’t find out about it.”

 _Or he found out too late_ , but let’s not go there.

“I wouldn’t count on that”, Tim says from the door, with a smile in his voice. “I always got grounded for it, no matter how sneaky I thought I’d been.”

Jason hums in agreement, and Damian doesn’t disagree, so Tim goes on.

“This is not permanent, Damian”, he says, repeating Jason’s words. “But for now we need to make it work anyway.”

There is a long silence, and Damian only answers after Jason pokes his leg again.

“I know”, he grumbles, pillow still pressed on his face so tightly Jason’s really starting to wonder how in hell he’s still breathing.

“Want to come out from under there and say something else?”

“No.”

Jason pinches his side and Damian unclenches one of his hand to swat him, giving him the opportunity to snatch the pillow away from the kid’s hold. He meets Damian’s puffy, angry red glare with an impish grin.

“So?”, he prompts him again.

Damian looks away from him and makes a point to look anywhere else but at his brothers.

“I will help with the cleaning”, he murmurs.

Which is not an apology at all, but it’s close enough for Tim to nod at him. Jason has half a mind to insist anyway, but he’s also so not in the mood for a fight right now, so he pushes down all the snappy comebacks on how helping with the cleaning is the least he can do and gets up from the bed.

“And no patrol for a week”, he adds anyway, crossing his arms over his chest because if he has to play the adult he might as well do it properly. Also he’s kind of curious about Damian’s reaction, because if the kid decides to start trashing the room again, at least Jason will have the confirmation that this entire night has been nothing but an useless exercise in patience.

But Damian doesn’t start screaming or launching things at him. He only scowls and shoots him a look full of disdain, which, Jason supposes, is as close as he’ll ever get to acquiesce.

He watches the kid scrambling out of the bed and then out of the room, pausing only for a moment next to Tim, who gently squeezes his shoulder when the kid walks past him. 

Jason will never understand his younger brothers, honestly.

From the sound of it Damian’s already starting to pick up pieces of the smashed furniture when finally Tim turns towards him with a skeptical grimace on his face.

“You know that you just reminded him that instead of fighting us about this he can actually just try and do it behind our backs, right?”

Jason answers him with a tired smile.

“Yeah, the key concept here being _instead of fighting us_ ”, he points out. “What? You don’t feel up to the challenge? Damian will be delighted to hear that.”

Tim rolls his eyes at him. 

“When this dumbass plan goes downhill - and it _will_ go downhill, mark my word on this - you’ll find me right beside you, ready to put all the blame on your stupid perception of what is a situation improvement and what isn’t.”

“Yeah, sure”, Jason replies. “You’re welcome, little brother.”

Tim gives him a look all too similar to Damian’s previous one before he too walks out of the bedroom to help the kid with the cleaning, and Jason can only mentally groan at himself, knowing that this time he dug his own grave with his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally unplanned second chapter because my brain does that sometimes. Still this is not going to turn into a longfic because let’s be honest, there is literally no plot here, just Jason getting random heart attacks because of his younger brothers.  
> Also I feel like I’m rewriting Lilo & Stitch for some reason??? I’m just not sure who’s who here because Damian should be Stitch but he’s more Lilo than anything, and Tim is totally Nani. So that makes Jason Stitch, I guess. I mean, he does have the temper.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many feels about this people I had to create a new tumblr to keep them in check. [Come say hi](https://unavenged-robin.tumblr.com) if you want.


End file.
